After the setbacks in Mali, the security strategy of Assimi Goïta faces a reckoning
A widening gap between official rhetoric and conditions on the ground
Behind the mounting military setbacks in Mali, one question refuses to fade: what remains of the promise of security reconquest championed by the authorities in Bamako? Soldiers have been killed and captured, and positions have been overrun. The disparity between the declarations of strength issued by the capital and the reality faced by troops in the field has become impossible to overlook.
For several months, Malian forces have suffered particularly heavy reversals at the hands of the JNIM and the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA). Attributing every loss to a supposed lack of courage among soldiers does not explain what is actually occurring. The facts point instead to deeper questions concerning strategy and command.
The assault on Dioura and the capture of a military camp
On 10 September 2026, the military camp at Dioura, in central Mali, was struck by a major attack claimed by the JNIM. According to a toll reported by military, security and local sources, at least 100 Malian soldiers and five Russian members of Africa Corps were killed. The JNIM, for its part, asserts that it killed a greater number of combatants and captured 93 people, although these additional figures could not be independently verified.
The Dioura affair cannot therefore be reduced to a body count. The loss of a camp, the abandonment of equipment and the capture of soldiers also constitute a major operational setback. Security analyses indicate that the assailants carried off a significant quantity of weapons, ammunition and vehicles, even if the full extent of the quantities claimed cannot be independently confirmed.
And Dioura is not an isolated episode.
July: a convoy caught in an ambush in the north
On 18 July, a Malian military convoy travelling in the north of the country was ambushed in the Tabrichat area, on the Anéfis–Bourem axis. A source close to the rebels spoke of more than 50 combatants killed, while other soldiers were reportedly captured. The Malian army confirmed the ambush and stated that airstrikes had enabled the convoy to break free.
More gravely still, Amnesty International documented, on the basis of analysed videos, the execution of at least 19 Malian soldiers after their capture during that attack. The organisation is calling for an independent investigation into acts that may constitute war crimes.
Under such circumstances, speaking simply of “soldiers who surrender” is an incomplete reading. An army can lose a battle. But when military personnel are surrounded, captured and, in certain cases, executed, the question of their preparation, their intelligence support, their logistics and their chain of command becomes unavoidable.
April: when the threat reached the heart of the military apparatus
On 25 April 2026, Mali experienced a series of coordinated attacks attributed to the JNIM and the FLA. The assailants struck several strategic locations, including Kati, Bamako, Gao, Mopti and Sévaré.
In Kati, a garrison town near Bamako, the Minister of Defence, Sadio Camara, was fatally wounded during an attack on his residence. His death was officially confirmed by the Malian authorities.
The symbolism is particularly heavy.
Kati is not an isolated position in the middle of the desert. It is one of the country’s principal military centres, in the immediate vicinity of the capital. That armed groups were able to mount a coordinated attack there constitutes, at the very least, a serious signal regarding the penetration and intelligence capabilities of Bamako’s adversaries.
The problem is not the courage of the soldiers
This is where the debate ought to begin.
Malian military personnel deployed in the field do not decide on general doctrine, the organisation of intelligence, the deployment of units or military alliances. These choices fall to the political and military chain of command.
Since the coups of 2020 and 2021, the authorities led by Assimi Goïta have made military sovereignty and a rupture with certain Western partners essential markers of their policy. Cooperation with Russia and the presence of Africa Corps have accompanied this new orientation. Yet in 2026, attacks by the JNIM and the FLA demonstrate that the change of alliances has not put an end to armed pressure. Jihadist violence has even reached particularly high levels across the Sahel this year.
This does not mean that every military defeat can be attributed personally to Assimi Goïta. A war as long and complex as this cannot be reduced to a single individual.
But the head of state is also the supreme commander of the armed forces. In that capacity, the results of his government’s security strategy may legitimately be examined.
And the current record raises serious questions.
Soldiers are falling. Others are captured. Camps are attacked. Convoys are ambushed. A Minister of Defence has been killed in an attack at the heart of a military town.
Under such conditions, demanding accountability for the strategy is not an accusation against the soldiers.
It is precisely a refusal to place the weight of decisions taken at the top on the men sent to the front.
Can an army prevail without protecting its personnel?
This may be the central question.
An army is not measured solely by the number of weapons it possesses or by the firm rhetoric of its leaders. It is also measured by its capacity to anticipate an attack, protect its convoys, resupply its positions, evacuate its wounded, relieve its encircled units and prevent its soldiers from becoming prisoners or executed victims.
At Dioura as at Tabrichat, the images and tolls available show a reality far more brutal than political slogans.
The Malian soldier who finds himself surrounded is not responsible for national strategy.
He is the one who pays the price for it.
And as military setbacks accumulate, the question is no longer merely how many men have died.
It is why, despite changes of alliances, promises of reconquest and the resources committed, the Malian army continues to suffer such shocks.